Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 30, 1993 TAG: 9305300133
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: D7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRIS BACHELDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Mark Wise has the will to play on the Star teams of the burgeoning Roanoke Valley Youth Soccer Club. His way is a 90-minute ride from the Wise home in Lewisburg, W.Va.
For the past year, the well-mannered, well-adjusted 15-year-old has commuted to Roanoke - twice weekly for practices and weekends for games - to play with the 15-Under Roanoke Star White team.
The U15 Star White is one of 120 teams competing this weekend in the seventh annual Crestar Festival Soccer Tournament at seven sites across the Roanoke Valley.
Wise scored his team's only goal on a penalty kick Saturday as the Star, "playing up" in the U16 division at Salem's Green Hill Park, tied twice - 0-0 with the Colonial Heights Lightning and 1-1 with Lynchburg United.
Wise played with a club team in northern West Virginia for a year, but he was three hours from practice and could play only in games. When the team disbanded last fall and his mates went off to play high school soccer, Wise was a boy without a team. He was entering the ninth grade, but he still was in junior high.
"So my dad found Roanoke for me," he said. "He got in touch with coach [Danny] Beamer and I tried out last summer.
"I was really nervous. I didn't know anybody and I heard people talking about how hard it was going to be to make it."
Beamer, the coach of two Star teams and the club's executive director, remembers the tryout and the early conversation with Wise's father, Barry.
"I just kind of blew him off," Beamer said. "I thought, `There's no way in the world.' He lives so far away and I didn't expect him to be as good as he was. But I saw him walking up to tryouts and you can just tell when a kid can play - just by the way he walks or what he's wearing.
"He's a quality player and a quality kid. All the guys liked him right off the bat. He made the team, he made the commitment and he stuck to it. It's helped him and it's helped us."
Wise does homework on the way to practice - he has maintained his perfect 4.0 grade average - and he sleeps on the return trip. His chauffeur, normally his father, visits with family in the area. Mark Wise has two aunts, two uncles and two sets of grandparents living in the Roanoke Valley.
"It's kind of hard because I hardly ever see my friends," Wise said. "But the guys on the team have really treated me great and the club has improved me."
Wise will try out next week for the U16 team and will play in Europe later this summer with his U15 team. As for the fall, he is considering moving to Roanoke and living with relatives.
"Obviously, I don't want to leave my parents and friends, but at home I don't have anybody to play soccer with," said Wise, who has already been accepted at North Cross. "One of the reasons I would want to move here is to work toward a [college] scholarship."
Beamer said Wise, a defensive midfielder, "definitely has the tools."
"You can tell at this age," he said. "He has the potential, but he needs to keep playing at a high level."
Wise's mother, Jane, drove the family cab this weekend. She took a break from working a concession area to watch Mark play his afternoon game.
"If he goes to school here, it will be very hard for me," she said. "I didn't expect that until college.
"But our goal with our kids is to give them the confidence to make decisions and to accept challenges. My part is to let go."
by CNB